UPDATE: Thursday, September 8th, 11:09 a.m. Here's an interesting timeline sent to us by a tipster that reveals what went wrong with Nexicom switch... It's apparently put together by Nexicom employee.

Sept 5th – 11:45AM. Primary and redundant switch failure alarm generated. Both our primary and backup phone switch went offline and technician notified.
Sept 5th – 12:15PM. Technician onsite and investigating. Strong burning smell evident upon entry to building.
Sept 5th – 12:45PM . Additional technicians called to site to investigate – power disconnected to all phone switch equipment as per safety protocols.
Sept 5th – 3:00PM. Diagnosis of issue shows that the primary and redundant telephone switch had suffered un-repairable electrical damage.
Sept 5th – 3:00PM. Emergency procedures initiated and switch vendor notified.
Sept 5th – 6:00PM. Extensive troubleshooting and “heated” discussion with switch vendor. Switch vendor notifies Nexicom that there is no spare equipment available in Canada currently and must ship replacement equipment from their UK and/or California locations.
Sept 6th – 8:00AM. Updates received from switch vendor that they are still staging and preparing the equipment. Staging and testing process is very involved and complex with this kind of equipment – normally takes a minimum of 1 week.
Sept 6th – 9:00AM. Nexicom technicians began preparatory work for arrival of new equipment.
Sept 6th – 3:00PM. Switch vendor has confirmed shipments have left from the UK and also from California via air freight.
Sept 6th – 11:00PM. Nexicom technicians complete preparatory work required for arrival of new equipment.
Sept 7th – 7:00AM. Confirmation that replacement telephone switch equipment has arrived in Toronto and waiting customs clearance process.
Sept 7th - 10:00AM. Customs clearance confirmed and new switch equipment picked up by Nexicom.
Sept 7th - 11:30AM. Equipment arrived and technicians began installation.
Sept 7th - 1:30PM. All voice services restored.

Nexicom has extensive support and maintenance contracts in place with our telephone switch vendor so that situations like this can be dealt with very quickly. This situation has raised serious concerns that are resulting in a series of ongoing discussions with them in the coming weeks. Obviously our primary focus at this moment is to followup on the service restoration but you can be confident the discussions with our switch vendor will be a priority immediately after service restoration.

-------------------------

[UPDATE Wednesday, 11:51 a.m.: Here are the latest emails that went out to all Nexicom customers this morning. Service should be restored later this afternoon.]

Message to all Nexicom Telephone Customers

Re: Phone Outages Update

Further to the update we sent a few hours ago, the switch has arrived in Millbrook.

Our technicians are currently working on programming the unit, and we anticipate that we should have full telephone service available to you by later this afternoon.

We will continue to keep you up to date on the progress.

Our next update should announce fully restored telephone service.

Thank you again,

The Nexicom Team

-------------------

Message to all Nexicom Telephone Customers

Re: Phone Outages Update

The replacement switch has been processed through Canadian Customs and is in transit from Pearson International Airport to Nexicom’s facility in Millbrook.

The switch will be programmed by our technicians upon its arrival and we hope to have your phone service fully operational by later this afternoon.

Once the equipment is in our facility undergoing programming, we will send you another update.

Again, we thank you for your patience and understanding.

The Nexicom Team

------------------------

[UPDATE: Here is the release that went out to all Nexicom customers this afternoon. It's looking like service won't be restored until by end of day tomorrow.]

From: "Do Not Reply" <donotreply@nexicom.net>
Date: September 6, 2011 3:38:07 PM GMT-04:00
To: <donotreply@nexicom.net>
Subject: UPDATE: Telephone Outage
Reply-To: support@nexicom.net

Message to all Nexicom Telephone Customers

Further to our message this morning, a new telephone switch has been configured, tested and we have confirmed it is in transit. It is anticipated that we will receive the new switch tomorrow afternoon after clearing customs. As soon as we receive the unit, every effort will be made to restore service by end of day tomorrow. We will send out another update tomorrow once we receive the switch.

Again, we thank you for your understanding.

The Nexicom Team

-----------------

CHEX Newswatch segment: